The Blood Wonder of Walldürn: Unrecorded metal foil print.

[Metal foil print]. Wunderthätige Bildnus des H Bluts zu Waldthurn in Reith. S.l.: s.n, s.a. [second half of 18th century]. [12.9 x 7.2 cm], [1] f. etching-engraving decorated with metal foil. Trimmed just inside platemark, minor edge wear, staining in upper third, remnants of mounting on verso.
 
 
Unrecorded ‘foil-enhanced’ print relating to one of the more bizarre miraculous images of the Middle Ages: the ‘Blood Wonder’ (Blutwunder) of Walldürn. The miracle occurred in 1330, when the Walldürn priest Heinrich Otto accidentally overturned a chalice of consecrated wine. The wine/blood stained the linen corporal (altar cloth) with the image of the crucified Christ and 11 heads of Christ crowned with thorns. Astounded, Heinrich Otto hid the cloth away for fifty years, revealing it only on his deathbed. 
 
A robust pilgrimage to Walldürn—located in the modern Neckar-Odenwald district of Baden-Württemberg—began in the first decade of the 15th century and reached its peak following the completion of the Wallfahrtsbasilika St. Georg in 1728. Today the miraculous cloth has faded so severely that it appears to be entirely blank, and so pilgrims can visualize the relic only by having faith in the chain of copied images that supposedly descend from the original. 
 
The first printed image of the Blutwunder appeared on the title page of Jodokus Hoff’s 1589 pamphlet De Sacrae VValtdurensis peregrinationis ortu et progressu (very rare), which is also the first published source of the legend. This image differs from the print presented here in that the 11 heads of Christ are there simply illustrated, not depicted as termini of rivulets of wine/blood flowing from the overturned chalice.
 
Prints enhanced with metal foil in the manner seen here were especially popular in German-speaking lands during the second half of the 18th century (they are sometimes called Spickelbilder; see A. Spamer, pp. 105-12, although some insist that this term applies only to the application of fabric to prints). While some interventions of this sort were personal or ad hoc improvements made by a print’s owner, many if not most composite prints of this type were made by design at the printer’s shop. Notable engraver-publishers of Spickelbilder include Caspar Harrer, F. X. Jungwirth and G. W. Weissenhahn in Munich; Georg Frehling and Johann Gutwein in Augsburg; and Johann Hendl in Linz (see, H. Heres, pp. 36-8). Examples of specific Spickelbilder are today rarely found in more than one or two copies.
 
 
This engraving is not located by OCLC, KVK, Omnia, or the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek.
 
*Wolfgang Brückner, Die Verehrung des Heiligen Blutes in Walldürn; M. Domarus, Walldürner Wallfahrt in sechs Jahrhunderten; H. Heres, Das private Andachtsbild: Devotionale, Andenken, Amulett; A. Spamer, Das kleine Andachtsbild vom XIV bis zum XX Jahrhundert.